Should be worth checking out the transcript when it appears: transhumanist sci-fi author Charles Stross was the guest at Sophrosyne's Special Salon in Extropia Core on Saturday. "Charlie will discuss the Singluarity in fiction, cutting-edge technologies, his Hugo-Award finalist novel Halting State, about virtual worlds and augmented reality, and his upcoming novel Saturn's Children."

On that note, if you're in the mood for an unconventional anime centered on the themes of memory preservation, body swapping, being able to explore other people's memories, and so forth, check out Kaiba. Six episodes in, it's certainly not disappointing. (Be prepared for an artwork style that's somewhat sketchier than you might be used to. ^_^) It's a Madhouse production - they've been responsible for quite a few innovative anime in their time, including the recent Paprika.

A set of freebies not to be missed! The Garden of NPIRL Delights is closing on the 23rd, and "several of the very gifted content creators have decided that their work should not disappear. Hurry hurry!" Follow the link to see some of the best that people are coming up with in SL visual art; visit to bring back copies to place on your own land. Maybe you also have ideas that could be brought to virtual life? (Being a wintry sort, four Yip's Elevator Angels is an installation that particularly appeals to me)

Dashed good: Sporto Kantes. Awkward to describe, going by just the two tracks presented - it's sort of electronica, inasmuch as The Pinker Tones are, but with quite a large natural input as well.

Scientific American reports on researchers at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle: "Cassian Yee, an immunologist, says that he and his team removed so-called CD4+ T cells (a type of infection-fighting white blood cell) from a 52-year-old man with stage IV (the most advanced) melanoma—the deadliest form of skin cancer; it had spread to a lung and a groin lymph node. The researchers grew T cells (that target a specific protein, or antigen, on the tumor cells) in the lab until they had a population they believed was large enough to destroy the cancer. They infused five billion of the cloned cells into the patient. Two months later, PET (positron emission tomography) and CT (computed tomography) scans did not reveal any tumors—and the patient has remained disease-free for two years, Yee says." They do caution this is only a single result so far, with the next step to try the process with ten to twenty more people; if that works out, they hope it "could be a viable treatment option within five years".

Apparently, the long-delayed Whovian spinoff show starring K-9 is underway, having finally entered pre-production. The writing pedigree looks good, with his co-creator, Bob Baker, also having been a writer for Bergerac and Shoestring, and responsible for the screenplay for Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

There's an MST3K group that meets for weekly in-world viewings, 7pm Fridays. ^_^

Of course, it was only a matter of time until someone (probably many someones) had to create a certain dragon in Spore..

Well, we survived the trade show. ^_^ Apparently, quite a lot better than that, though there's still a packed month or two ahead to get the project completely wrapped up, with the next week or two dedicated to getting the first batch committed to manufacturing, which, amongst other things, relies on my bootloader being absolutely solid - so there's some tough testing in the works; I certainly wouldn't want to sign off on code that isn't perfectly reliable. (More people would help, but, even if we could find the right people, it'd take time to bring anyone up to speed with the code and hardware, so it's basically up to the coworker and myself, at this point)

So, maybe I'll be able to actually reply to everyone's replies again. If not, I do apologise - it's not out of ignoring anyone.

What would you say your favorite eps are, then? I've still got a very soft spot for Pod People ("It has nothing to do with pods, it has nothing to do with people; it has everything to do with pain"). Reminds me, I should fetch some more episodes sometime - my existing collection's (a) several time zones away, (b) on these quaint big plastic cartridges with magnetic tape spools inside.

Fair enough. ^_^ I was introduced to MST3K in the Joel days, but I'm fine with both him and Mike - quite different styles, but both unmistakably MST. I'll admit to somewhat preferring Dr Forrester over Pearl, but again, I quite warmed to her as well, as the Sci-Fi run progressed.